Life with Stewie and Mika

It’s that most summer-y of summer traditions in the United States: a time for BBQs, neighborhood parades, running through sprinklers, and detonating low-level but extremely loud explosives in the sky above our homes … Wait, what? That’s right. It’s time for 4th of July fireworks. And every year, anxious pets throughout the country are having…

The conventional wisdom is that delayed gratification (that is to say: the ability to hold off on an immediate pleasure) is a predictor of future success. That conclusion came from a famous psych study called “the marshmallow test.” The Marshmallow Test If you’re not familiar with the marshmallow test, here’s the story: Researchers gave children…

Rachel Ritchason is the Santa Barbara Zoo’s Curator of Birds and Records. She began her career in 1998 at the San Francisco Zoo, where she was a bird keeper. Rachel joined the Santa Barbara Zoo in 2007, where she went on to become the registrar in 2010 and bird curator in 2012. She holds a B.S…

Lara Joseph is a professional animal behavior consultant and trainer. She is also the owner of The Animal Behavior Center, an international educational center focusing on teaching people how to work with animals using the principles of positive reinforcement and applied behavior analysis. We’re excited that Lara took time out of her very busy schedule…

You know your parrot owns you when … You got rid of the gorgeous, expensive non-stick pans you got as housewarming gifts You stop watching TV after sundown because the bird needs to sleep Every pet store employee in the tri-state area knows you by name. You have special shirts you wear for the express…

A couple days ago, I posted about serving my birds a variety of foods, including fresh vegetables. I haven’t always done a great job of mixing up where food goes in their cages. Usually, pellets go in one bowl over here. Water goes in another bowl over there. And I generally serve fresh foods the same…

In 2010, I wrote a blog post about Stewie’s and Mika’s favorite foraging toys. I recently found that post again and wanted to do an update. Their favorite toys have really changed! All new Stewie- and Mika-approved recommendations for 2018: Homemade Parrot Foraging Toys Homemade = cheap. Hooray for cheap. Here are our favorite toy…

Hopefully, by now we all know how important it is for parrots to eat a balanced diet that includes fresh foods. In fact, I just recently attended a parrot nutrition lecture by Jason Crean in which he advised a 100% whole food diet. In other words, NO processed foods including pellets. I’ll blog about his…

I’d like a parrot who doesn’t bite! There’s no such thing as a parrot who doesn’t bite. All birds will bite. I hear the first request from would-be bird owners who are exploring adopting their first parrot. They think that buying a baby bird from a breeder will help them avoid getting bitten. Conversely, they…

This article was first published in 2008 on the now-defunct PetKnows.com blog. I’m republishing it here as that site has been taken down. Some people think of parrots as low-maintenance pets, a step up from fish and hamsters, but much less trouble than a dog or cat. Anyone who gets a pet bird under that…

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Best in Flock started as a blog where I documented my journey with my first rescue bird. I eventually added a second parrot to the flock, and began sharing my personal experiences, resources and other info I felt would be helpful to other bird owners who were looking for help keeping their companion parrots healthy and happy. Browse our Greatest Hits Articles for tips and education (and a little bit of fun stuff, too)!